Frigid Cold
by Eternaltsundere
Summary: Lost and far from home, it's up to other X-Men to save Kurt before the cold claims him. Cancelled.
1. Prologue

**A/N: **I know a lot of people write accents into their stories, but that just really bugs me. So imagine the accent's okay? :P And just to clarify, Kurt is not thinking in English. German is still his native tongue, but I felt it was easier on the audience (and me!) to keep his thought English.

And a disclaimer:

I own nothing but my puppy Sirius who is furry and does resemble an indigo-black hue but is in no way anyone from the X-Men series. Who would have guessed?

A trembling form was huddled in the snow, shivering with cold. Kurt Wagner was lying, curled into a ball, in the damp sleet with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He raised a shaking arm to hug himself, trying to stay warm. His golden gaze fluttered open halfway and he let out a little gasp.

_Curse me and my winter escapades,_ he tried to joke with himself. But his usual humor was gone, as was his sense of balance - his tail was nearly frozen solid. This shouldn't have affected him, but it did. On days when he couldn't trust his feet lest they plunge him into a snow drift, he relied solely on his tail for balance.

Kurt attempted to raise his head and push himself into a sitting position. He succeeded in the former but not the latter; his arms slipped out from under him and he crashed back to the frozen ground. A small grunt of pain escaped him and he shuddered. After a good pause, he gingerly raised himself up into the intended sitting position, if somewhat sloppily, and gazed blankly around him.

_I guess I passed out, _he reasoned as he shakily dragged himself to his feet... and collapsed again. His teeth - no, fangs - chattered and he felt even colder than the snow around him. He couldn't quite remember what he was doing out here, but all he knew was that he wished he had brought a coat.

Sure, fur like his could serve as a sort of jacket for a while. But in winds such as these? No less than a warm windbreaker would have sufficed.

As he felt his mind start to grow fuzzy again, the 'elf' searched desperately for something to focus on. He latched on to the vague memories of a song his mother... his foster mother... would sing to him at nighttime.

Struggling to remember the lyrics, he whistled a wordless tune for a moment before he remembered a little bit of it:

"Too la roo la roo lal," he murmured to himself. That song had always puzzled him. "Too la roo la rye..." He shifted and tried to cling to consciousness, but it wasn't working. He couldn't remember any more of the lullaby, either.

He guessed that none of the others had noticed his absence. Not Scott, not Kitty, not Evan, not Jean... Jean! With his last bit of coherence he tried to call out to her within his head.

_Jean! Jean, please, help me! I am... lost in snow.. I do not recall where I am or how I got here. Bitte, help. _

He hoped he had been clear enough in his message. It was too bad that the Proffessor was gone. Kurt groaned quietly in pain and then wondered why. The frigid ice and snow on bare skin and fur hurt quite a bit.. and he saw little rivers of pink and red leading away from where he lay. Dizzily, his mind made the connection. He was bleeding, but.. he didn't...

The world spiraled before his very eyes and then gave was to a comforting blackness.

------------------

"Hey, has anyone seen Kurt!?" shouted an annoyed Kitty as she scoured the house for any signs of the blue furball. "It's time to open presents and I can't find him anywhere!" She stormed down into the kitchen where some of the others were gathered. "Have you s--"

"We heard you all the way down here Kitty, and no, we haven't seen him," Scott cut her off. Kitty sighed, pulled up a chair, and crossed her arms. "When I find that elf, he'll pay for making me wait for my presents...," muttered the girl darkly. Jean and Scott exchanged a look while Amara and Evan just stared.

"Come on, we can look for him together," Jean suggested, getting up and pushing in her chair, "Who wants to help?" Evan raised a hand to signify his assent, while Amara shook her head. "I am staying right here where it's warm and safe." The others couldn't help but laugh. Kitty nodded and stood to follow Jean as she left the room, Scott not far behind. Evan jumped up and ran to catch up.

Just as they were finishing their examination of the house and moving to the outside, the redhead of the group clutched at her head and closed her eyes tightly. Kitty whipped her head to look on in confusion as Scott asked her gently, "Jean? Are you alright?"

She raised a finger to shush them all and they waited in tense silence for a few seconds. Then she opened her eyes and stared solemnly around at them. "What?" Evan joked, "Is the K-Man sending you messages of grave peril?" But Jean's gaze was serious, silencing everyone instantly.

"It was Kurt. He sounded very confused..," she began...

Meanwhile, a blue-furred mutant slipped into unconsciousness.


	2. Lost and Found

**A/N:**_ As I write this, it is still 2009! Maybe by the time it's posted, it'll be 2010- who knows? I'm writing this now because I want to make sure I have a coherent thought process (I hit my head again.) I say again because every day it's a new injury with me, usually my head. Today, it was the old fake piano falling on me when I rummaged for clothes in the closet. Yesterday, it was trying to stand up in a car. Three days ago, I forgot there was a stoop in the shower holding the shampoo and stood up as I was cleaning the wall..._

* * *

As the four teenagers trudged through the snow, talking amongst themselves, there was a great feeling of dread in the air. It had only been a few moments since Jean had received Kurt's message. She had tried to locate his mind again, but had been greeted with nothing but silence. She wouldn't tell the others yet, but she suspected Kurt was unconscious - or worse - and that meant big trouble for their favorite Fuzzy Elf.

"He can't be that far from the grounds, if he's not still in them anyway," she tried to comfort the others, "Otherwise I wouldn't have heard him." But her words held no real merit to them. Evan voiced this by sputtering a frustrated, "Like that helps! He could be anywhere from the mansion to the high school!"

Jean looked a little put out, so Scott wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Hey, you tried," he managed. Evan gave a huff and then turned to her again. "Can't you find his mind again? Read his thoughts, ask him about.." He was silenced by a look from Scott. Jean frowned and gazed down at her slowly moving feet as if they suddenly held the answer to the question of the meaning of life. She'd have to tell them now, wouldn't she?

"Well," she murmured, glancing upwards momentarily, "He..." Kitty was the first to realize what her hesitance could possibly mean. Her head snapped upwards and her mouth turned downwards into a little frown. "Something's wrong." It was a statement, not a question. Her eyes were bleak and sullen.

Jean nodded silently and turned away while Evan took in this exchange. Scott was unsurprised, but the 'city kid' of the group was taking it a little harshly. His mouth agape, he stared from Kitty to Jean to Kitty again.

"What?" he mumbled, "Kurt isn't..dead, right?" His voice was shaky.

"I don't know," came the reply.

Evan managed to nod his acceptance and then clapped his hands together. "Well, what are we all waiting around here for? We'd better find him!" His tone was oddly cheery. He rushed off, Scott following quickly with Jean in tow. Kitty stood a moment longer, gaze still forlorn, then ran to catch up. They'd find him, she knew. She had to have faith.

"Keep looking?" she begged Jean as she reached the other girl's side, putting a hand on her shoulder and staring pleadingly into her eyes. She knew Kitty meant looking not in the literal sense, but the mental. "I'll keep trying. I promise."

They searched aimlessly for a good hour or two, finding nothing but empty, snowy fields, until Jean latched on to something. He had been drifting in and out of her grasp for the past half hour, but she finally got a good lock on his mind. Her friends noticed as she halted in the snow.

_Kurt!_ she called, as strongly as she could, _Kurt, please, don't let yourself slip away. Where are you? Can you let me see? _But she needn't ask him to lower his barriers. His mental state was so weak she could get in anyway. It was just courtesy that she would even request.

_Ja, _was the only thought she recieved in reply. Then she pressed forward and saw through Kurt's eyes - for the moment, she _was_ Kurt.

Mostly, it was just endless ice and snow, not something they could easily pinpoint. But there were some identifying features. Kurt turned his head back and forth so she could take in the whole landscape. They were by the edge of some woods! There was a forest in the grounds; she hoped to God it was somewhere nearby. They... he wouldn't survive much longer out there. Something jerked her rudely from her hold in Kurt's mind and she was back in her body, Jean again, as Kitty shook her shoulder.

"Where is he!?" she demanded, and Jean resisted the urge to withhold that information, agitated that the girl had broken her concentration. But for the others' sake she sighed and explained.

"Somewhere near the woodlands. That's all I could find out before..." She trailed off pointedly, but Kitty didn't seem to notice it. She attempted desperately to find Kurt again, but there was nothing but the ones around her - she was weakened visibly by her past actions and couldn't reach that far anymore, at least not for now. Scott came up to her and draped an arm over her shoulders again as he noticed her expression. "It's fine," he assured her, guessing what was wrong, "We'll find him."

-----------

Kurt clung desperately to consciousness and glanced around frantically. Where were they? It was getting darker - he couldn't tell if it was natural or if his vision was just starting to fail him - and he was so cold. How long had it been? He shivered and curled tighter into his little ball.

"Bitte Gott, help me!" he choked out, teeth chattering. _Help me_. And he drifted off again.

When he came to again, it was to the sounds of voices and the feeling of footsteps in the ground below. He rose, gingerly, from the mound of snow that had covered him and looked around. He.. he didn't see anyone... body threatening to collapse again, he decided it was best to sit. Plopping down in the powdery snow he drew in a deep breath as the process pained him for some reason. Again he was reminded of the blood coming, strangely, from his body, though from where he still did not know.

Suddenly arms wrapped around his neck and someone was sobbing very loudly into his ears. He shuddered and then tried to angle his head back to stare up at his rescuer. It was Shadowcat, her expression relieved but at the same time terrified. "Y-you're frozen solid!" she gasped, and Nightcrawler wondered why, for once, she was not repulsed by his fur...

He fell forward and someone else caught him. As he cracked open an eye, he saw Evan. "Keep him warm!" They all huddled around him, arms holding him close. As Kurt felt dangerously close to passing out again, he chuckled bitterly to himself, too quiet for them to hear. Finally, someone touched him and did not jump back at the sensation of fur upon skin - it just took him nearly dying to get the attention he craved...

The world spun again.

**A/N: EEP IT'S 11:55! MUST POST! D: Hope it's still today in FF . net land, too.**


	3. a quick note: BREAK?

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hello, readers of Frigid Cold. Don't worry, I plan to finish this story! xD I've just been taking a break from X-Men Evolution fandom. Yeah.. I got sucked back into Naruto. So I'm going to put this story on a short hiatus (no longer than a week tops, I promise!) so I can write a quick Naruto fanfiction to satisfy my thirst from Naruto fics.

Please don't hold it against me!! xD And I apologize for this 'note' chapter, I will remove it as soon as I update. This is just to warn you all, or maybe 'alert' would be a better word.

Don't worry, I still love mai Kurti.. :3 I just got into Naruto yaoi (yikes! yaoiphobes LOOK AWAY!!) for a short time. I'm sure as soon as I watch another X-Men Evol. episode on DXD I'll be cured of this illness instantly.

Your . . . friend? Fellow FanFiction-er? Or author, if you wish:

Amber

otherwise known as Devyn

...or Nilla

.....or tebayo.


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